


Borderlands

by Sherloqued



Series: Between Hay and Grass [10]
Category: Brokeback Mountain (2005)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-25
Updated: 2018-10-25
Packaged: 2019-08-07 11:05:49
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 411
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16407290
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sherloqued/pseuds/Sherloqued





	Borderlands

That's what it was.  Taken from him, from all of them.  He tried to name it, tried not to think about how it really might have happened, keep the violent mental images at bay, keep thinking of how Jack's wife had told him it had happened to take the place of those thoughts.   Jack's wife didn't have to tell him a thing more than that, and yet she did.  Taken from all who loved him.

He was thankful there was good in people - Jack's mother's kindness, and Jack's wife's too, since she probably had gathered that he and Jack had been more than fishin' buddies over the years, and still she had eased his heart after giving him the terrible news, still wanted Jack to have peace by his ashes bein' laid to final rest up on Brokeback like he'd wanted.

Sitting in Jack's parents' kitchen, he felt his insides tightening, the usual place he seemed to experience intense feelings he could not express.  Viscerally, more like a physical blow to the gut, or a sinking nausea.  So he was able to politely down a few sips from the cup of black coffee Jack's mother had offered to him but declined any of the cake, because he knew his churning stomach couldn't handle much else just then.

He listened to Jack's father's gavel voice tell them in no uncertain terms that his son's ashes were goin' in the family plot, and in her housecoat, Jack's mother's hand fluttered birdlike about her throat as he said it, even as she comforted Ennis with an understanding, knowing expression, defying the old man's words by their shared secret and her gift to him of the shirts.  He wasn't going to be able to have him, even now.  His fingers tightened their grip on the rolled-up edges of the paper bag that contained them because at least he had that.

"You come back and see us again." she said, and Ennis nodded in agreement, perhaps a bit too vigorously, his smile a bit too forced, and it seemed then that they both knew he probably would not, and he could not share his grief then, bit back tears.

In the quiet stillness of the long drive back, he noticed that the little bluestem grass, growing along the sides of the highway for miles, had changed from their summer green to a deep copper, feathery white tufted seedheads blowing and scattering their seeds to the wind.


End file.
